Ethical Concerns in Robotics Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards defining key organizations, historical facts, rules, and core terms related to ethical concerns in robotics from the lecture notes.

Ethics

Standards of right and wrong, also known as moral philosophy, that involve considering what it means to do the right thing, such as being honest, keeping promises, and not stealing.

Robota

The Czech word meaning hard work and forced labor, from which the word 'robot' originates.

National Society for Professional Engineers

An organization that developed the Engineering Code of Ethics, which mandates that engineers prioritize public safety, health, and welfare above all else.

Isaac Asimov's First Law of Robotics

An ethical rule stating that a robot may not injure a human or allow a human to be harmed through inaction.

Isaac Asimov's Second Law of Robotics

An ethical rule stating that a robot must obey orders given by human beings except when those orders conflict with the First Law.

Isaac Asimov's Third Law of Robotics

An ethical rule stating that a robot must protect its own existence, unless doing so conflicts with the First or Second Law.

British Standards Institute

An organization that developed ethical design standards for robotics, establishing that robots cannot be primarily designed to kill or harm humans, humans remain responsible for robot actions, and responsibility must be traceable.

IEEE Standards Association

An organization running a global initiative on the ethics of autonomous and intelligent systems to educate, train, and empower designers to advance technology for humanity's benefit.

Open Roboethics Institute

A non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the social and ethical implications of robotics and AI by generating research-based insights, hosting public lectures, and connecting diverse groups.

Human-Robot Interaction

An area of ethical concern in robotics that focuses primarily on care robots and friendship robots.

Care Robots

Robots designed to care for humans, raising ethical concerns regarding deceptive empathetic care and the potential reduction of intentional human care in aging societies.

Friendship Robots

Robots used by humans for companionship, which introduce concerns about deception because robots cannot actually experience feelings or mean what they say.

Arthrobot

The first robot used to assist in surgery, utilized specifically during an orthopedic surgery in Vancouver.

Trolley Problem

An ethical dilemma considered in autonomous vehicle programming where a moving train will kill five people unless diverted to a sidetrack where it will kill one person.

Autonomous Weapon Systems

Autonomous devices deployed to attack, requiring ethical evaluations regarding civilian safety, blameworthiness, and mechanisms for maintaining human control.

Robot Rights

A debated ethical concept questioning whether robots should be granted rights, which would significantly alter other areas of robot ethics.

Superintelligence

An ethical concern in which robot intelligence grows beyond human levels, raising questions about human control and digital consciousness preservation.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mechanical Knight

A mechanical knight robot created by Leonardo da Vinci to defend against enemies.

Japan

The largest manufacturer of robots in the world.